Jay Beasley Wins the Spears Southwest Tour iRacingevent
Congratulations to Jay Beasley for winning the Spears Srl Southwest TourSeries “America’s Tire 100 presented by Retro Custom Metals” iRacingevent from the virtual Phoenix International Raceway last night. Beasley took the lead on a lap 92 restart, from virtual Irwindale Speedway winner Christian McGhee, and held on to win by 0.650 seconds. Linny Whitedrove from 20th starting position to finish third and claim the Hard Charger Award sponsored by the Meech Media Group. Colorado National Speedway stars Dominic Ursetta and Mark Neff rounded out the top-five.
Just as in the first SRL iRacing event from Irwindale Speedway, Christian McGhee set time over the 36-car field. McGhee led the first six laps, battling with Jay Beasley. Beasley led lap seven, with McGhee re-taking the lead the following lap. McGhee and Beasley ran side-by-side for a good portion of the first 40 laps of the event, through several cautions. By lap 40, 2018 SRL Champion Jeremy Doss made his presence known, passing Beasley for second at that point, and pressuring McGhee for the lead. Just before the lap-50 break for tires and fuel, Beasley was able to retake second, with Doss, Jace Hansen and Garret Archer rounding out the five at the break.
With a two-tire change, Ricky Schlick emerged from the break with the lead, ahead of McGhee, Hansen, Beasley and Cody Dempster, with Doss relegated to the rear after a pit road speeding penalty. The restart found Schlick leading the way, with McGhee and the top-eight in tight formation. On lap 59, McGhee contacted the rear bumper of Schlick, shuffling the 2017 Rookie-of-the-Year back to fourth. Hansen found himself in second with Beasley to third. It only took Beasley a few laps to resume the runner-up position and resume the chase of McGhee.
Several cautions slowed the action, with McGhee able to hold off Beasley in the slower lower groove each restart. But a restart on lap 92 changed the race, with Beasley sailing it into Turn 1 and emerging with the lead on the high side. The Las Vegas native was able to hold off McGhee the remainder of the way, with Linny White closing to make it a tight battle for second, poking his nose under McGhee several times. In the end, however, McGhee was able to fight off the 2019 SRL Championship runner-up to finish behind Beasley.
Beasley was able to take home $250 for the victory, with McGhee scoring $300, after his second-place finish and Fast Time. Linny White took home $200 which included the Hard Charger Award.
A Thank you goes out to race sponsors America’s Tire Joe Rhodes Jr..), Retro Custom Metals, Meech Media Group, Delta Gunite And Shotcreteand Reeves Complete Auto Center Inc.. The next scheduled event for the SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour Series is the SPEARS SRL JM Environmental Wildwest Shootout 227 presented by 51 FIFTY LTM at The New Stockton 99 Speedway on June 6th. The event will pay $10,000 to the winner with a half-time leader bonus of $2,000. An additional $5,000 can be won, if a driver in the top-eight elects to start in the rear and wins.
A-Main Results: 1. Jay Beasley, 2. Christian McGhee, 3. Linny White, 4. Dominic Ursetta, 5. Mark Neff, 6. Donny StOurs, 7. Preston Peltier, 8. Dylan Cappello, 9. Cody Dempster, 10. Jeremy Doss, 11. Austin Barnes, 12. Garret Archer, 13. Ricky Schlick, 14. Craig Raudman, 15. Brandon Farrington, 16. Kole Raz, 17. Sean Woodside, 18. Dean Thompson, 19. Jace Hansen, 20. Cole Williams, 21. Jonathan Mawhinney, 22. Matthew Meech, 23. Kenny Smith, 24. Brandon White.
B-Main Results: 1. Dylan Cappello, 2. Donny St. Ours, 3. Preston Peltier, 4. Brandon White, 5. Trevor Huddleston, 6. Blaine Rocha, 7. Gary Smith, 8. Jack Wood, 9. Rob Kiemele, 10. Ron Esau, 11. Jacob Gomes, 12. Forrest Kuecker, 13. Travis Mccullough, 14. Don Zoll Jr., 15. Dan O’Donnell, 16. Justin Westmoreland, 17. Eric Nascimento Jr..
